Venus
by 95Echelon
Summary: Dean Winchester was a man's man - or on his way there anyway. He was the fastest pitcher on the baseball team, could fix any car made before '93 and fieldstrip every firearm ever known to man in under 45 seconds. So of course his mother was the love goddess. Duh. [Camp HalfBlood AU]
1. The Math Teacher from Hell

**Age: 14**

Dean Winchester was having an exceptionally shitty day.

Sunlight filtered in golden bands through the venetian blinds across the classroom. Mr. Burnham was droning about that one time that one Greek god did that one exceptionally stupid thing and Dean- Okay, so maybe that was mean? Mr. B did **not** drone. As far as teachers went, Mr. B was actually, really, pretty cool.

And maybe Dean had a tiny, itsy bitsy crush on him okay? Judge away if you wanted, cause the man was seriously **awesome. **

Dean did not trust people who pretended to not notice Mr. B's frankly dangerous levels of awesome.

(Who are we kidding? Dean's crush was completely out of hand.)

But see- that was the problem. Sunlight was filtering in through the bands, and Mr. B was being his fun, badass self and Tricia Henrikson from the third row had turned over and grinned at Dean _**thrice so far**_, and all Dean could think of was this weird, nasty buzzing at the bottom of his stomach that _**screamed**_ something was gonna go wrong.

And Dean had learnt to trust an angry stomach. It meant bad things - like that time Sammy had come home from school with his first black eye last year, or that time he'd arrived at their apartment to find the place completely wrecked. The kitchen had still been kind of a little bit on fire, the walls and curtains savagely ripped, sofas and mattresses slashed open, glass shards littering the floor like jagged teeth. The whole place looked like it had been visited by a small, angry dragon.

Or that other time when Dad's CO had come over to their place to tell the Winchester boys that he'd been horribly injured in the line of duty and was currently recovering in a hospital that wasn't even in America. **_What. _**

("Where is he?"  
"Classified, boys, sorry." He didn't sound too sorry.  
"Where'd he get hurt?"  
"Ah- Um. Also classified. Now why don't you boys go on with Chelsea here?" He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, and jerked his meaty thumb to a tiny redhead beside him.  
"It's Charlie, Major." She wrinkled the side of her mouth. Sam thought she was _adorable,_ and promptly blushed like a girl.  
"Hm? Yes, yes. Take care, Cheryl. Good night."  
"It's 3 in the afternoon?" Charlie sounded like she couldn't decide whether she was amused or horrified that this man was responsible for the safety of the American people.  
But the Marine had already left, busily tapping away at a Blackberry and generally super-distracted.)

So- huh, where were we? Right. Stomach troubles. Getting worse by the ever-lenghthening second. Was it just him or should class have gotten over like forty seven _**days**_ ago? Probably just him, but- oh bloody- Dean shot his hand up in the air. "Hall pass, Mr. B, please!" he gasped, one arm tightly clutching his midsection, nearly doubled over as the pain worsened from "Hm, something is probably wrong," to "Holy shit Winchester, what the heck did you eat last night oh god someone call Charlie and please tell Sam I love him oh _**maaaaan.**_"

Dean bolted out of his seat, grabbing the pink slip Mr. B had held out for him, into the corridor. His footsteps echoed loudly as he ran through the empty hallway, the lockers along either side of the corridor a shiny metallic blur in his peripheral vision.

And then, _**out of nowhere**_, like three feet in fromt of him, a locker clanged open and a clawed foot stepped out. But, like, a human sized clawed foot. What was attached to it, though, was weirder. Coal-black legs that disappeared into a hideous floral skirt. A dark brown sweater vest under a mustard jacket of even greater hideousness. Sharp clawed black hands that curled around an acid green handbag clutched to her chest. A crotchety wrinkled face and dark hair that hissed and writhed on her skull (…_snakes?_ Snakes!) and a wide, toothless smile and eyes that resembled red-hot embers.

It was Dean's math teacher.

"Not so fast, dearie," she sang, and then her eyes narrowed and she charged at Dean, mouth morphing into an angry snarl.

Dean ducked out of her grasping claws, and lashed out with his foot, tripping her, but she was down for barely a second, before there was a great _**whoomp!**_ of air, and Dean was thrown on his back. Enormous leathery wings erupted from the back of her jacket, spanning the breadth of the corridor.

"Tut-tut, dearie," she sang, drawing closer to him, the barbed tips of her wings drawing long gashes along the ceiling, "You shouldn't have done that." Plaster rained from above in a powdery snowfall. She raised her green bag high in the air, like an executioner's sword, and Dean thought, 'Hey well, if he was gonna die anyway...'

So he looked up at his evil bird-lady math teacher, summoned a lethally charming smile, and said, "Hey now, you don't _really_ wanna do that, do you?"

She- It?- faltered, and for half a second her eyes glazed over slightly. Dean saw his chance and jumped right in. "You _don't_ wanna hurt me, Miss Harping, you really don't. You wanna leave now, don't ya? You just wanna go _home." _

And Miss Harping's arms fell back down, her shoulders slumped and her wings curled down to the ground, sweeping the floor in massive black arcs. "But I _have_ to," she murmured, her lower lip trembling pathetically. "For Hades."

Hades? And then Dean felt like hitting himself. The bat wings, the burning red eyes, the snake-hair. This was a _Fury!_

"You're a Fury!" he blurted, like a total idiot.

"Well, yes," she said, looking a bit cross now, frowning at Dean and muttering, "Have to kill now, yes, yes, have to kill Dean Winchester."

She raised her handbag once more, but Dean never got to find out what was in it. He crouched, and spun, with one leg extended out straight, bringing Miss H crashing to the ground, wings and all.

From a distance, he heard someone yell, "Dean! Think fast!" and he felt, more than he saw, a small fountain pen flying towards him. He snatched it out of the air, and later he'd wonder how he'd known to do that, but in that instant he ripped open the top and watched it transform into a gleaming bronze _spatha,_ a flat, triangular blade, without so much as blinking an eye.

He watched Miss H's eyes go comically wide and take a stumbling step backwards.

He swung the blade in a gleaming arc, but she tumbled backwards, the tip just grazing her stomach. When Dean had cut her, a scar parted open, dripping globs of murky gold. _Ichor_, the blood of gods.

Dean's gift - if you wanted to call it a gift - had worn off her now, and her eyes burned with a renewed ire. "_Charmspeaker,"_ she hissed through gritted teeth, and charged at him, brandishing the green bag like a weapon. Dean struck with the _spatha,_ cutting through Miss H like she was made of butter.

Her eyes bugged out, and with her final breath, she choked out, "You won't save your brother, Winchester," before she turned to a heap of dust in a badly-lit middle school hallway.

Dean turned around, and Mr. Burnham was standing a few feet down the hall, shoulder casually propped against a locker, arms crossed and grinning. "Good catch, Winchester," he said, before turning around and walking back to class.

Dean stared at him as he left, trying to process the concept that he'd just vaporized his math teacher.

Seriously, you guys.

_**What.**_

* * *

a/n:

welp. i started a new story. bad idea all round but hey, i like to live dangerously.  
story will be T throughout, i think, 'cept for a coupla f-bombs dropped every now and then.  
pre-slashy cuteness and brotherly bonding and major ass-kickery. (no wincest okay? jesus, that shit's M)

follow and favourite and review and all that jazz. see ya at the next chappie.


	2. I Rock-a-by-baby a freaking DRAGON

"_You won't save your brother._"

Dean stood outside of Sam's school, leaning against a lamppost and trying and failing to blend in. As the kids poured out, and ran to waiting parents, Dean's breath came tighter and tighter. _Where the hell was-_ oh thank god!

Sam's messy mop of dark brown hair bobbed out of the crowd. Dean smiled hugely, and waded through the press of 10 year olds, relief flooding through his entire body.

"Heya Sammy," he called out and Sam wrinkled his nose. "It's _Sam,"_ he muttered.  
"Sure thing, shortstack," he replied easily, mussing Sam's hair.  
"_Dean!"  
_He wrapped an arm around the younger boy's shoulders, and Sam let himself be pulled into his brother's side without a word.

Not save his brother? I call bullcrap, Miss H.

Of course the **real** trouble started when the schoolbus pulled up in their cul-de-sac. Which was on fire. _Again.  
_A ring of firetrucks had encircled the house, spraying the house with high-powered jets of water. And then Dean realized _why_ their house was on fire. There was a dragon on their porch.

I repeat: A. Mother. Freaking. Dragon.

"Someone call animal control!" he heard a fireman yell.  
_Seriously?!_ Dean wanted to yell. You_ call Animal Control for a dragon? Is this how you adult?  
__"_Goddamnit, that bear's spreading the fucking fire!" he heard someone else yell in response.

_….a bear. They think that's a_ bear.

Dean desperately glanced at his brother who was gaping open mouthed at the house.  
"Sam?" he asked cautiously.  
Sam had gone bone white. He looked up at Dean, gulped and whispered, "Dean? Why do we have a dragon?"  
Dean could've cried with joy. At least Sammy wasn't nuts.

Or- huh. Maybe they'd both finally cracked. Too many Spaghetti-o dinners could do that, right?

And then suddenly the thrashing dragon went incredibly still. Its long, scaly red neck twisted until it was looking past the water that steamed when it touched the dragon's skin, past the rushing firemen, past the assembled firetrucks, right at Dean. It cocked it's head to the side, and it's yellow cat eyes turned to liquid black pools. It reared back, baring a sickly yellow underbelly and stumpy, clawed forelegs. It shot a fiery plume into the smoke stained sky, roared, tossing it's head angrily, and then charged straight at the Winchester boys.

Dean's hands shot out, shoving Sam backward. His fingers curled around the fountain pen, and when he yelled,"MOVE!", his voice was so heavy with command, the firemen were stumbling over each other to obey him.

He never really figured out exactly what happened next. It sort of blurred together, with moments glaring out, like glitchy frames in a stop motion video. The heft of the bronze _spatha_ in his untrained hand. The blazing heat of the dragon as it drew near. The jarring impact of metal against scales shuddering through his arms. Sam screaming, "DEAN!" when the dragon sliced it's claw against Dean's chest, three shallow cuts bursting on his skin, shooting white hot flares of pain when Dean so much as breathed.

Dean remembers the pain turning his vision black, the warm wetness as his blood soaked his t-shirt. He remembers the sudden feeling of separating from his body, of the sensation of watching the scene from very high above, like being balanced at the edge of a cliff.

He remembered looking at the dragon, and murmuring, _Stop, stop, give up now. Lie down now, there's a good boy. _

His vision snapped, and suddenly he realised he was kneeling next to a dozing dragon, patting its snout as it breathed out in contented little huffs of smoke. His shoulder was healed. He turned around to his baby brother. Sam's mouth seemed stuck in a permanent 'O'.

And then there was a soft _thunk,_ and Dean turned back at the dragon so fast he nearly got whiplash, only to see a bright blue dart embedded deep in its neck. Down the road, Mr. Burnham was grinning, and next to him was a slim young blonde, about Sam's age, who had a cool half dozen blue darts, just like the one stuck in the dragon, clutched in her hand.

She smiled sunnily at Dean, and he had to fight the urge to blink. "Hey there," she said. "Did someone call for animal control?"


	3. Flying Horses are overrated

"Come on then. Between the tranquilizer and whatever the hell Winchester did, we've got maybe 15 minutes before that thing wakes up."

They piled into a dangerously unsteady chariot, drawn by horses. With wings.

"Pegasi!" Sam gasped with obvious bright-eyed delight. The blonde rolled her eyes and snapped the reins. "Back to camp, boys!" she called to the pegasi, and with an almighty lurch that made Dean fall on his ass, they were airborne.

Twenty seconds later, Sam had the widest grin ever known to man. Dean was green, (hah, that rhymed), a white-knuckled grip on the chariot box's delicately filigreed rails.

"_Why,"_ he muttered, trying not to look down, "_the_ fuck_ are we flying?"  
_"That's what you do when you have flying horses?" the blonde said, rolling her eyes again, perfectly at ease at her post. Dean fervently hoped they got stuck that way. God, she was a brat.

(Flying didn't bring out the best in him, alright? Jeez.)

Mr. B slouched against the side of the chariot, dangerously close the edge. Dean stamps down the urge to violently tug him somewhere safer. With his dark hair windblown, and his grey eyes bright, in a faded denim jacket and dark wash jeans and combat boots, he looked like a young Dean Martin.

So in a word, wow.

Even that wasn't enough to distract him.

"Camp ahoy, boys!" the blonde yelled and it struck Dean that he still didn't even know her name. He followed her line of sight, and saw a valley nestled among gently rolling hills, strawberry vineyards stretching to the east, tiny cabins dotting the northern arc of a clearing, an enormous open air amphitheatre, and what was quite possibly the **coolest** rock climb wall in the history of **ever. **

This camp was not on any of the brochures, _but goddamn son_. Whoever these kids were, they'd elevated summer camp to an _art._

He turned to her, and breathed an awed, "_Wow._" For the first time, her expression softened. Her lips tugged in a quiet smile, and she said, "Yeah. It's pretty wow, Winchester."

And then there was a white hot blast of heat, and the chariot was on fire.

Inconvenient, that.

* * *

See, Dean has a couple of fears. Flying, yeah. Sam picking fights with bullies three times his size, not so much. Kid's made of strong stuff. So when Sam - stupid, **stupid**, recklessly brave Sam - _leaps out of the flying chariot and __**onto a dragon's back**__,_ Dean's sort of quietly impressed. He thinks Sam yells something like, "NOT MY PEGASI, YOU FUCKKNUCKLE!"  
Epic battle cry, but man oh man. They really need to talk about Sam's language.

So he yells, "Sammy! Think fast!" and chucks the fountain pen at him, oddly submerged in deja vu. (Okay, so it's not _that_ odd. The same thing literally just happened to him like four hours ago.)

Sam grabs the pen and, whipping open the blade like he was born with it, hacks at the dragon, sort of screaming and stamping and barely holding on like a lunatic toddler on a sugar-rush.

But just then, the fire burns through the reins. Suddenly, the chariot is in free fall, spinning to the ground in a splintering wooden death box. Dean screams Sam's name, and jumps with inhuman strength, launching himself like a bullet, grabbing the dragon by its forelegs.

Sam chooses that moment to rip away the dragon's left wing, and it lurches, bellowing in pain, unleashing a streaming golden inferno. It's massive reptilian body tilts drunkenly to the side, sliding Sam right off the smooth scales. Dean grabs Sam, heart pounding furiouslyby the scruff of his tee. Below them, an enormous oak stands at the edge of a shimmering amber line and Dean instinctively knows that it's the camp border.

He can already hear Sam's angry yelling. He can hear a thousand echoes of Sammy sayin' "I'm not a kid, Dean! I can take care of myself!"  
In his head, a part of him is saying, _Sorry Sammy, gotta do this,_ and another part, the rational part, the part that isn't screaming in terror and running in circles, that part is calculating how long he'll have to hold off the dragon to make sure Sam crosses.

When they're close to the ground, Dean leaps off the side, rolling across fresh, dewy grass, back awkwardly bumping into the roots of the oak tree. Sam is nestled in his arms, and his fall softer, cushioned. He grabs Sam's face in both of his hands. "Run, Sammy," he says, and he knows, _he knows_ Sam will listen because he's a good kid. He's as good as they come and he'll _listen._ Relief burns in his chest, and he presses a hard kiss on Sam's forehead. Sam turns and scampers off.

Dean picks up the fallen _spatha_, wipes it on his jeans and grins. "Alright, Mr. Fuckknuckle. Let's see whatcha got."

* * *

It doesn't go well.

The dragon lunges, and knocks Dean off his feet. He roars angrily into the sky, and the smell of burning leaves fills the air.

Dean picks himself up, and charges for the soft underbelly, sword held above his head. The dragon paws at the ground, it's black eyes narrowed, smoke billowing out of its ears. Like an angry bull on Looney Tunes. It rises on its haunches, stoops its neck nearly parallel to the ground and bellows, dragon drool and acrid air bursting in a concentrated vortex.

Dragon breath, it turns out, has a great deal in common with open sewers in summer. Dean chokes, and coughs, hot tears streaming out of his eyes.

When he blinks away the wetness, he sees the bright flash of sunlight against gold scales, the wicked curve of the dragon's extended claws. He raises the broadsword once more, the weight of it like an anvil in his hands. When the dragon strikes, all Dean knows is pain.

In the very last moment, he is unutterably glad Sam got away.

* * *

Sam _runs_.

His feet hit the ground in hard thuds that send tremors up his bones, propelling him faster until his breath comes in shallow, burning gasps. He follows the sound he hears in the distance - kids cheering, the steely crash of metal-on-metal, and the kind of blue cussing that'd make Dean blush.

The grassy meadow underneath his feet gives way to hard-packed earth. The sound of metallic crashes turn out to be… _swords._ Swords in the hands of _teenagers._ They duck and weave and parry, sparks flying coppery gold where their blades connect. Other kids straggle the sidelines, all in armor worn over ratty jeans and orange t-shirts. Bronze glints in the sunlight amongst them - javelins and pikes and spike-studded clubs, bronze-tipped arrowheads and enormous broadswords thicker than his arm.

"He-_e_lp," he gasps, and no one hears him.

He falters to a stop, and screams. **"HELP!"**

His legs sway and buckle, sweaty palms crashing to his knees. "My broth-", he half-gasps as a dozen heads turn to him. "My brother!" His vision turns spotty and the brown of the earth lurches towards him like the sea. "Up-" _gasp_ "Up on the hill. Dra-" He falls. "Dragon," he whispers.

He hears a scream from where Dean stands, and he feels something _**snap**_. And he knows, _he knows_, something's wrong, something's bad, Dean's dying- dying- _dead._ The last thing he sees before he loses consciousness is an almighty crash of lightening where Dean would've stood. And then, there is darkness.


	4. Remember that bit about going to hell?

When Sam reached the top of the hill, Jess at his side and the entire armed Ares cabin behind him, the dragon was gone. The oak tree that had once stood, disappeared as if it had never been there. The grass on the hill was scorched, black smoke rizing lazily from the burnt ground, smoldering in the summer breeze.

But he barely noticed any of it. Because of _her_.

A woman in white, unbearably beautiful; she sat cross-legged on the blackened grass. And draped across her lap, head cradled in her arms, lay Dean. He was still, so still, unmoving. She stroked his hair, silent, intent.

When Sam reached the top of the hill, she looked up at him. When she spoke, her voice sounded terrible, like nails on chalkboard, like a hundred voices speaking the same line out of turn, like a goddess' voice that had been shattered. "They've taken him to Tartarus," she said, and her sadness, her despair was a tangible thing, like salt and dryness and ash that collected on Sam's tongue. "They've taken- taken _my child_-" her voice trembled and broke, "To _Tartarus_. To the land of **_monsters_**."

She closed her eyes, drooping for a single second over the body of her son, before they flew open. Her back straightened as she turned to glare at him, her shoulders thrown back, regal, angry, defiant. Her eyes were blue, Sam thought, but they _burned_.

Most of him was going _shitshitshit_, and the part that wasn't jackhammering blood until he felt it in his toes thought burning blue eyes were a pretty neat trick, actually; he'd have to learn how to do that.

"Find him," she said. "Save him, Sam Winchester, or you will feel my wrath, _boy_."

There was a rush of wind and charred leaves, and she was gone, Dean's still form lain on a patch of dewy, unblemished grass.

* * *

Dean was falling.

Air whooshed past his ears, and roared through an endless cavern. It was hot and dry and filthy, invisible sparks nipping his skin like angry swarming piranhas, leaving angry red welts in their wake. He squeezed his eyes shut and then threw them open, and the darkness was so complete he could barely breathe for it.

He wasn't sure how long he fell, only that he hurt and burned and felt as tired and dry as the Sahara. A sickening squelch cushioned his fall, and when he heard a groan underneath his fallen body, he twisted over himself, trying to get away from the horrible, _broken_ sound.

When he stumbled onto both his feet, he realized the mushy wetness that he had landed on had soaked through the back of his t-shirt, a warm sticky thing he didn't dare to think about.

He looked around. Where the hell _was he?_

But for a dull flat redness, there was no light. The landscape rose craggy and barren in the distance, shimmering like a desert mirage does in the heat of the afternoon sun. Reddish peaks rose against a midnight sky, their cruel scimitar tips like grasping hands that reached for the heavens.

He took a step, the soil beneath him wet and marshy, sticking to the soles of his shoes. He stuck his hands in his pocket, and his fingers, once more, gripped a capped fountain pen. He felt his heart burst in a hopeful spasm against his ribs, even as his gut gnawed angrily, war drums thundering along his spine. He uncapped the pen, and the _spatha_ shone bronze - a miniature sun in a world of darkness.

That was when he heard the screaming.

* * *

"You have visited the Oracle?"

"Yes."  
"And?"  
"And only a brother can save a brother in need. Only a daughter of war can walk through death's realm. And a son of the king must repay his debt."  
"That isn't all there is to the prophecy, is there, Samuel Winchester?"

Sam shuffles his feet awkwardly, looking away from Mr. Burnham - _Chiron_, he reminds himself - and focusing on the marbled pattern of the office tiles.

"Yeah," he mutters. "There's more." Chiron nods peaceably, his face unlined in the Big House's warm gold lights.  
"Very well. Who will accompany you, Sam?"  
"The prophecy mentioned a daughter of war - so, um, Jess? And she says a son of the king must mean a son of Zeus, right? And, well. There's only one living son of Zeus. Dean freed him. He owes Dean. So we find him and we make him come with us."

"An unwilling companion on a hero's quest. That is... new."

Sam shrugs. "He owes Dean," he repeats, looking past the gabled window behind Chiron, past the sword-practice arena, past the gently rolling hills, into the endless azure of the sky. He looks much older than 12.

"Then find the son of Zeus, Sam Winchester," Chiron says. "Find Castiel Novak. You have my blessing."

* * *

**A/N:  
**I honestly swear this was supposed to be funny! AND FLUFFY! I WANTED FLUFF! I have literally ZERO CLUE how the FUCK a fucking PLOT crept into my story OH MY GOD I COULD SCREAM.  
Anyway.  
Um.  
Now that that's happened we're just going to roll with it.

Follow and favourite and review folks, it makes my day cupcake-shaped :'')


	5. A Chapter in four parts

"Okay," Sam says. "Okay." He lets his forehead fall to the tops of his bare knees, arms lax at his sides.

Jess sits in the grass beside him, at the top of the hill, where Aphrodite had left Dean's body. The Apollo cabin had moved it to the infirmary later, and no one knows what the hell to make of it - because, clearly, Dean _is_ dead (no heartbeat, no breathing, no… nothing) but he isn't really showing any sign of… well, _dead_-ness.

His blood is oxygenated; rigor mortis isn't setting in. Even his breath smells fresh.  
Or the air around him. Whatever.

And of course, there was that one time Dean sat straight up on his cot, his eyes wide open, took an enormous heaving breath, and then... _fell_ _right back down_, dead as ever. Will Solangelo screamed so loudly, the Hermes kids were swearing up and down that that was what made all the infirmary's windows shatter.

(The truly brain dead from the Aphrodite cabin even _believed_ them, but then again, they believed Kim Kardashian was their long-lost sister. Breathing Givenchy fumes all day would do that to you.)

"God is real?" Sam whispers, not looking up.  
"God as in the metaphysical creator of all things?" Jess asks. "Or gods; as in your mom and my dad and beings of extraordinary power?"  
"Both?" Sam asks weakly.  
Jess smiles grimly. "I don't have all the answers, Winchester."  
"What about my brother, then? What's _wrong_ with him?"  
"You heard Aphrodite, Sam. He's de- He's in the underworld. By all accounts, he shouldn't even be _saveable. _This quest from the Oracle to go to "Hades' realm"? It doesn't make _any_ sense."

"But _why?!"  
_

Jess sighs, fingers ghosting over the dewy blades of grass. "There was a prophecy, a long, long time ago."

* * *

**A long, long time ago  
****Or more specifically, 1945, towards the end of World War II  
****Mount Olympus, New York City**

"MY SON, BROTHER!" Jupiter boomed, a heavy fist crashing on the armrest of his throne.

The skies above New York rumbled ominously, clouds purpling, heavy with rain.

On Mount Olympus, in the throne hall, Hades slouched casually against a marble pillar opposite Zeus' throne, examining his nails with great interest. His toga was as dark as hair; and on a side note, just as fabulous. The other gods sat, quiet, still on their seats of power, sensing the storm on the horizon.

"ANSWER!"

"Oh for the love of Rhea," Hades muttered, and finally looked up at the king of gods. "Pipe down, will ya? You'll hurt the mortals, or… somethin'" He flapped an impatient hand, as though to brush off the matter, like a wet dog shaking off water.

And then he was raising a slim finger, tracing a glyph in the air, his index drawing shining golden lines that hovered in front of him. They formed a pair of unbalanced scales, and Hades muttered, "My Lady Nemesis, goddess of revenge, keeper of the balance, yada, yada, give us an audience, eh, sweetheart?"

The air shimmered, and shifted, and Nemesis stepped through the parting air onto the cold marble of the throne hall.

"Dude," she intoned, to Hades in greeting, inclining her head slightly.  
"Dudette," Hades replied. grinning widely. "Alright!" he announced, rubbing palms together. "So, quick recap for our guest - Zeus's latest blight on the face of humanity-"

"The boy has a _name_, Hades," Aphrodite griped, irritated at the younger brother and firmly in Zeus' camp.  
"Oh yeah, brilliant name too. _Castiel_, for pity's sake. Who names a kid _Castiel_, Zeus? Did you _not_ want him to survive kindergarten?

"Hades…" Athena warned, although her voice trembled like she was trying not to laugh. Excellent namer too, Athena was. All Annes and Kates and Johns and Samuels in her repertoire - none of this flowery _Castiel_ bullshit.

"Right, right, so! The boy, Castiel, killed one of mine, whom he was bound to _protect_," and here Hades' voice dropped, and his eyes flashed burning, screaming red, "and he _failed. _He failed the first rules, that no harm shall come to a guest,he _failed_, and now my child is _dead_, and I will have my price, brother. You will not stop me here." The gods held their breath, and for a brief moment, Hades, suave modern 1940s Hades disappeared, and in his place the old god reappeared, insane eyes and flyaway hair and a toga that was ripped and bloodied from walking through his kingdom of hell.

"He died trying to protect of _mine_, Hades. People die in war! This is _war, _you foolish, petulant _**child!**_" Aphrodite exploded, venomous with rage. "After all I've done, all I've done for _you_ \- this! This is how you lash back?!"

"You lying HAG!" Athena snarled from across her, and the collective intake of breath in the throne hall was electric. No one besmirched Aphrodite's beauty. _No one._

Hades made a move to interrupt the fight, but Nemesis raised a palm at her side, parallel to the floor. Her eyes gleamed excitedly. Hades got the message. He stepped back to his post.

"What have you done, that **_I_** haven't? That _**my children**_ haven't?! Nine children I've lost to the bloody war. **NINE!**" she roared. She was no goddess now, just a mother. Just a mother. Just grieving and rageful. "How many have you lost?" she whispered, but her voice was like a gunshot in the silence. "Not a one. Not _**one**_."

In the ensuing quiet, Athena continued, her voice grave now, bone-tired. "Do you know the name Daniel Wetherby, sister?"

Aphrodite did not reply, and Athena huffed out a short breath.

Hades continued, his baritone gently rolling through the hall. "He was one of Athena's. A naval intelligence fellow, sent from the Pentagon to the Russian border. Became a lieutenant-major quick enough. He was a good kid too. Met one of your girls in Petrograd, 'Dite - Olga Kuryoshenkov. Fell in love, decided to elope to India, you know how it is with your children."

He shrugged, like it was hopeless from there. "Got attacked by an angry herd of Arctic cyclopes on their way, heaven knows what they were doing so far south. He died; she managed to get away."

Athena made a hurt little sound, like she could hardly hold it in. Aphrodite stared with wide, horrified eyes.

"This is how it has always been. My children die, brother." Hades turned back to an unusually quiet Zeus. "Athena's children die. Do yours? Do hers? No!" The gods were looking to Hades now, angry and shamefaced at once. "Do you know _**why?**_ Becuase we fight _your_ wars. Your daughter Helen seduced her patroned Paris, and suddenly, _our _children were dying. Since _then_, Zeus, and even now. _Our_ grandchildren lose parents. _Our_ legacies are bloodstained, and you. _Will_. _Pay."_

Nemesis stepped forward, her arms spread wide beseechingly. "Brothers, sisters," she said, "let us not fight. Let us balance the scales."

She drew a small glass canister about the size of her arm, from the folds of her veleveteen robes. Inside it was a tiny sapling, hovering a green nimbus of light. "My king, your son has failed in his greatest charge - safeguarding his guests from harm. He must pay, but! I know it was not for lack of trying and so I ask you now - let your son rest now, my king. Plant the sapling at the border of the new demigod camp, and for as long as its roots stay firm in the soil, no harm will come to our children."

Zeus' eyes are fixed on the sapling. "Is- is that-"  
Nemesis smiles apologetically. "Yes. The sapling will hold the spirit of your son. An oak, my king. You understand."  
Zeus turned up to the goddess. "For how- how long?"

But before Nemesis could reply, there was another voice. "Dudes, isn't it obvious?" Apollo looked bored. "Until one of yours," he jerked a thumb at Aphrodite, "dies saving one of hers." The thumb flipped over to Athena.

"_Yesss_," Nemesis hissed, and no longer was her smile placating, satisfaction and cruelty overtaking the sharp lines of her face. "The scales must be balanced," she murmured. "Neatly done, brother."

"Oh," Apollo breathed. "_Fuck_."  
"What…?" Artemis muttered beside her brother, as she watched the blood rush away from his face, turning him sickly pale.  
"I just- that was- Shit."  
"Was that a _prophecy?I_" Artemis gasped, eyes narrowed furiously. "Did you just make a fucking _prophecy?!_"

"I- Um." His shoulders slumped. "Yeah."  
"Oh bloody Hades."

"…HEY!"

* * *

**Now  
****Tartarus**

In the distance, dust storms gather on a crimson horizon. Dean stares unblinkingly, opening his eyes wider, forcing his pupils to expand, to see more easily in the dark. But it isn't until he feels the ground tremble under his feet, until he hears the thundering of hooves against rock that he realizes - it isn't a dust storm.

It is a _horde_.

His vision stretches and bulges suddenly, like bubbling cheese in a fondue, snapping and clumping unevenly until he can _see;_ see endlessly, ten, twenty miles away, before the mists swallow it up. On the surface world, the earth would have curved from Dean almost precisely 3.1 miles from him, but here, _here!_

Here the land curves inward, like he's standing inside a great, red sphere, and he can see the screeching bat-winged banshees that fly great circles above lumbering giants, who wield rough-hewn clubs and spiked maces like playthings. Drakons flank the army's sides, slithering yellow-eyed reptilian beasts who leavy murky wet trails behind them; monstrous, humanoid, one-eyed Cyclopes bring up the rear.

They seep along the blackened misshapen land like a single putrid entity, and Dean is filled with a mindless fear. He steps backward, stumbling over the soft, wet black soil, before catching himself.

_Run_, his mind whispers.

_Run,_ his mind screams.

Dean's mind is battered with fear, cold sweat dripping down the length of his spine; but his legs do not move.

* * *

**Meanwhile, on a Greyhound from New York to Rochester**

Sam jerks awake suddenly, his face smooshed against the cold bus window. Outside, the glass is covered in condensation, sweating like a cold glass of lemonade in a Texan summer, night settling over a bustling town beyond the pane.

He sits up against the seat, and tries to inconspicuously rub away the drool along the side of his mouth. _Crap_, how long has he been asleep?

"Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty," Jess says from beside him, an eyebrow arched, clearly trying not to laugh.

Sam ducks his head, faintly turning pink. She probably saw him drool all over the window. _Perfect. _His life is _perfect_, really. Now she just needs to see him fart and they can get Vegas-married.

He frowns though, looking up around the bus, and turns back to her. "Why'd we stop?" he asks her, when he realizes they aren't moving. "We didn't already reach Rochester?" She shakes her head in response.

"Bus… problems," she says, waving her hand vaguely in the direction of the engine up front, before turning back to an open map of Rochester in her lap. "We'll be stuck here for a while, I guess."

"For a _while_?!" Sam erupts, turning to her fully. "YOU _GUESS_?!"  
"Jeez, Winchester. Calm your tits." She doesn't even look at him.

Sam grasps her chin and wrenches her face up to him. "My _brother_," he hisses, furious, "is in _Hell_. Gods know what he's facing, if he can still even **be** rescued. You don't _get _to fucking _guess_, do you understand?"

She is quiet, lips thinly pressed together, _furious_.

"_Do. You._ Fucking_. Understand._"  
The anger melts away, and she huffs out a frustrated half-breath. She nods gently, dislodging his hand. "You got a plan to get to Rochester quicker, Wise Boy?"

"Yeah," he replies, squeezing past her into the bus' carpeted aisle. "Gotta make a call."  
"Call who?" she asks, her brow scrunched - _adorably_, he thinks, and tries not to hit himself, because _Jesus, fine timing, Samuel_ \- as she looks up at him.

But he grins anyway, slinging her duffel bag high on his shoulder. "Find us a library, will you? We're calling Mom."

* * *

**A/n:**

i updated. um. also sam was 10 in chapter 1, but he's 12 now okay? fuck continuity! :D  
haha he sounds nothing like a 12 year old go team 95E ._.  
review and favourite and follow because i need the encouragement to write ._.


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